Chapter 14 The Pawn Shop Lead
The Pawn Shop Lead
Maren
* * *
Deputy Ellis has a voice made for delivering news you have to sit down for.
Calm, professional, a little too careful.
I heard it the night of the robbery when he helped me out of the safe room.
Now I'm hearing it again through my phone while I stand in my apartment trying to decide if I want leftover pasta or nothing at all.
"Mrs. Wilder, we got a hit on those photos you provided after the robbery." I forget the food in front of me. "Your grandmother's necklace. Pawn shop in Casper. Seller used a fake ID, but the security footage is clear enough that we're circulating the image."
My legs go weak. I grab the back of the kitchen chair and sit down hard.
I grip the phone harder, afraid I've heard what I wanted instead of what he said. "You found it?"
"We found where it was sold. The shop is cooperating fully.
They've provided the footage and all the transaction records.
" I have to remind myself to breathe while he explains.
"The necklace is being held as evidence until we verify it matches.
I was hoping you might have additional photos.
Close-ups of the setting, maybe. The pictures we have show the stone clearly, but the metalwork around the opal would help confirm the piece. "
I think about what I have. The photos I gave him were from my phone, shots I'd taken for insurance purposes. But there might be better angles from the wedding.
I open my wedding album folder on my phone as we talk. "I can check with my mother-in-law. She took pictures at my wedding. Some of them might show the setting detail."
Ellis waits while I look through the pictures. "That would be helpful. If you can get me copies, it'll speed up the verification."
"I can do that." My voice sounds steadier than I feel. "What about the seller? Any leads?"
Ellis gives me a reason to stop sitting here imagining it. "I'd like you to come down to the station. Look at the footage, see if you recognize him. We're also going to need a complete list of anyone who had access to your home."
I reach for my keys beside the bowl of unopened mail. "I can be there in an hour."
He gives me his extension in case I'm delayed. "That's fine. Ask for me at the front desk."
I hang up and sit very still. My grandmother's opal is sitting in an evidence locker somewhere because someone took it from my bedroom and pawned it for cash.
I think about calling Jackson. Old habit. I pick up my phone, then set it down again.
Instead, I call Delilah.
She answers on the second ring. "Maren. What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong. Good news, actually." I tell her about the pawn shop, the footage, the verification process. "Ellis needs close-up photos of the necklace. The setting, specifically. I was hoping you might have some from the wedding."
"I'm sure I do." I hear her moving, probably heading toward wherever she keeps her albums. "Your grandmother was standing right behind you when we did portraits. I remember the light catching that opal every time you turned your head."
My throat tightens. I thought I'd be able to talk about finding it without crying. Apparently not.
"She would have hated all this fuss." I clear my throat. "She always said it was just a rock in a fancy setting."
"She was lying." Delilah's voice is warm. "I saw her face when she watched you wear it. That necklace meant everything to her."
I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. Grandma left me her recipes too, her handwriting cramped in the margins of her old cookbooks, but the opal was different. The opal was something she wore against her skin every day for forty years.
I wipe my eyes before I make the practical request. "Can you bring the photos by? I need to get them to Ellis today if possible."
I hear a cupboard close at her end. "I'll bring them this afternoon. I'm just finishing up with the farrier."
I have to swallow before I can finish. "Thank you, Delilah."
She pauses. "Have you told Jackson yet?"
"No." I stand and walk to the window. "I'm going to look at the footage first. See what we're dealing with."
Delilah doesn't push. She's good at that, knowing when to leave space. "I'll see you soon."
* * *
The sheriff's office smells like coffee and old paper. Deputy Ellis meets me at the front desk and leads me back to a small room with a computer monitor and two plastic chairs.
"Take a seat." He pulls up a video file on the screen. "This is from about three weeks after the robbery. Seller came in around noon, made the transaction in cash, and left. Good angle on his face."
The footage is grainy but clear enough. A man in a dark jacket approaches the counter, sets something on the glass, talks to the clerk. Maybe forty, heavyset, with a beard and a baseball cap pulled low.
I don't know him. I've never seen him before in my life.
"Anyone you recognize?" Ellis is watching my face.
"No." I lean closer like that might help. "I don't know this person."
Ellis nods slowly. "I figured it was a long shot. The fake ID he used doesn't match anyone in our local system." He pauses the video. "Let's go through the access list. Anyone who's been through your home in the last year. Staff, guests, family."
I close my eyes and try to remember everyone. "The cleaning crew comes once a week. Maria and her daughter Elena. They've worked for us for three years. Rosa cooks for us too. She left dinner in the warming drawer that night before going home."
Ellis writes it down. "Anyone else?"
I work through the names aloud, refusing to skip the people I like. "Ranch hands don't come into the main house. Tyler's helped carry furniture a few times. Um, Jackson's mother, obviously. Other guests came through for dinners. I'll need to check our calendar so I don't leave anyone out."
Ellis starts a separate column beside the staff names. "Anyone outside immediate family or regular staff?"
I open my eyes. "There was a woman. Shay Denton. She was staying with us for a while. Jackson's childhood friend."
Ellis looks up. "How long did she stay?"
"About a month, from her arrival until the night of the robbery.
" I remember the day she arrived, the way she walked through the house like she was taking inventory.
"She wandered into the master bedroom during a house tour.
Picked up the opal without asking. She said 'Must be worth something' and 'You leave it just sitting out like this? '"
Ellis taps the column he has marked bedroom access. "Did she know where you kept it? Specifically?"
"She put it back herself. The jewelry box on my vanity." I fold my hands in my lap. "I told my husband about it that night. How uncomfortable it made me. He said I was reading too much into it."
Ellis writes it down. "Is she still staying with you?"
"No. Jackson fired her the night of the robbery and drove her to the bus station before sunrise." I learned that from Delilah, sitting in my apartment beside the skillet she'd brought me. "I don't know where she went after that."
Ellis leaves space beneath Shay's name for my answer. "Why was she fired?"
I hate having to explain this to a deputy, but giving him a nicer story won't help.
"Because I demanded she leave. Jackson was with her when I called him that night.
He already knew she'd been rude to me and handled my necklace.
I'd told him." I keep my hands together.
"She has a theft conviction, too. Jackson told me before he offered her the job. We agreed to give her a chance."
Ellis's pen stops moving. "She has a theft conviction?"
I shake my head before I start claiming more than I know. "I don't know the details. Jackson said she'd been released eight months before she came to us. He may have something in her employment file."
He makes a note, underlines something. "This is helpful, Mrs. Wilder. I want to be clear, though. A prior conviction isn't proof of this crime. And we don't have any direct evidence connecting Ms. Denton to the seller in the footage."
"I know." I do know. I want an answer badly enough that I could start deciding things without one. I need to be careful. "But she had access. She knew exactly where I kept it. And she asked about its value."
"All noted." Ellis closes his notepad. "We'll follow up on her whereabouts around the time of the robbery. See if there's any connection to the seller."
I look at the paused image of the stranger, wanting something more useful than my suspicion. "What happens now?"
"We verify the necklace with the additional photos once you get them to us. Continue investigating the seller's identity. If something connects him to someone on your access list, we pursue it." He stands. "Could take a while. Pawn shop cases aren't always quick to close."
I stand too. "But you'll keep me updated?"
Ellis writes his extension on a card for me before I leave. "Soon as there's anything to report."
* * *
Delilah is waiting by my door when I get back to the apartment, a manila envelope in her hands.
"Found six shots with good detail on the setting." She hands me the envelope as I unlock the door. "There's one of your grandmother adjusting the clasp right before you walked down the aisle. You can see the whole back of the pendant."
I open the envelope and pull out the top photo. My grandmother's hands, spotted with age, reaching toward my neck. The opal catching the window light. My own face turned away, looking at something out of frame.
I touch the edge of the photograph, careful to keep my thumb off Grandma's face. "I didn't know you caught this."
"I almost didn't include it." Delilah follows me inside and closes the door. "But the detail is better than any of the posed shots."
I flip through the rest. Portraits, candids, one of me laughing with the necklace clearly visible. The metalwork shows in at least three of them, the delicate silver filigree my grandfather had custom-made.
"These are perfect." I slide them back into the envelope. "I'll take them to Ellis this afternoon."
Delilah sits on the edge of my small couch. "Did the footage help? Did you recognize anyone?"
"No. The seller was a stranger." I set the envelope on my counter. "But I gave Ellis a full access list. Everyone who's been through the house."
Delilah nods slowly. She doesn't ask if I mentioned Shay. She doesn't need to.
"Thank you for these." I sit across from her. "For driving all the way over."
"It's twenty minutes." She waves a hand. "Besides, I wanted to see how you're doing with the radiator. Has it gotten any quieter?"
I point at the pipes along the wall. "I named it Gerald. We've reached an understanding."
She laughs, and the sound fills the small apartment. "Your grandmother would have named it something worse. She had a mouth on her."
"She called the furnace in her house 'that goddamn demon' for thirty years." I smile. "I miss her."
"I know you do." Delilah stands and squeezes my shoulder on her way to the door. "Get those photos to Ellis. Let's bring that opal home."
After she leaves, I sit with the envelope in my lap. The photo of my grandmother's hands keeps pulling at me. I slide it out and look at it again.
I want it to be her because then I could stop wondering who came into my home. That is an ugly thing to admit. It still doesn't make it evidence. Ellis has the names; now he needs to find out what happened.
I keep a copy of the picture with Grandma's hands at my neck. At the station, I give Ellis the remaining photographs and the access list, with a note to add the dinner guests after I check the calendar. He signs for them, and I leave with a receipt instead of my necklace.
At least Ellis has more than a blurry picture now.